


The Reactivation of SH-01

by biggestbaddestwolf



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AI, AU, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, M/M, The Reichenbach Fall Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-20
Updated: 2013-03-20
Packaged: 2017-12-05 22:56:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/728840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biggestbaddestwolf/pseuds/biggestbaddestwolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where Sherlock Holmes is an artificial intelligence, John Watson puts him back together after a supposed death. Technical spoilers up through Reichenbach, but incredibly AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Reactivation of SH-01

**Author's Note:**

> For Grace.

"You think I'm incapable of feeling.” It was the first words that Sherlock said when the diagnostics were done, and he managed to sound surprised.

John sighed. They were in the apartment that Sherlock and John had shared for a little over two years, before everything had gone to hell. Now the place was solidly ‘Johns’ again, and for that reason, everything felt wrong. The proportions were off, the lack of Sherlock’s datapads and experiments were off. John was off as well- but in the past month he’d started filling the place with bits and pieces, nuts and bolts, for the project that he was finally finishing.

The project was, of course, the reassembling of SH-01. Sherlock Holmes. John was on a stool in front of Sherlock, fiddling with the panel inside Sherlock’s chest as he finished the remaining final touches. Testing movement and cognition. Sherlock, so far, had passed every test swimmingly.

Another day, another time, maybe John would have been proud of his reconstruction work. After all, he’d done it this time without Sherlock’s persona uploaded onto a local computer, giving him incredibly blunt opinions about how his frame should look. "01, move your head."

Sherlock did as asked. "I told you I'm fine."

"You dropped off a roof, 01, I'm not about to take chances. You're lucky it didn't scramble your memory banks." John paused, hesitating, because maybe the fall had, and he hadn't figured out the glitch yet. Maybe, somewhere inside those wires and pieces that made up SH-01, he was broken.

Broken like John had been in that panicked moment when he saw Sherlock drop.

Broken like John had been when he heard Sherlock’s voice as it hacked the phone booth beside him

Broken like John had been from the moment that AI retrieval protocols had begun.

There was a time, a long time ago it felt like, when John wasn’t broken. When he was just lonely, before SH-01 was in his life. Back then, the SH-01 personality was given to John on an upload disc almost as a joke. It wasn't a particularly funny joke, but the engineers weren't known for being particularly funny, to be perfectly honest. That, and they didn't have much personal information about John to work from, compared to some of the rest.

They knew he learned to work with the AI storage units (a gross thing to call the framework bodies that they were in charge of building, but no one really wanted to refer to them as bodies, eithers. Except for Anderson, who seemed to have a sick enough sense of humor to call them corpses, and Molly, who treated every unit as if it was up and functional at all times) off on one of the sky-edge colonies, during war time, when the Weaponized Artifical Intelligence (WAI) needed on the field matinence.

They knew he was a bachelor on about the fourth attempt at a girlfriend in less than twice that many months. They knew whenever he thought they weren't in the room, he spoke to the units. Mostly cursing under his breath about his co-workers, but he did use words, and it did rather sound like an awkwardly one-sided conversation.

So the joke was simple. When they were about to toss some of the more...unmanageable personalities, Donovan tossed the back up John's way. Maybe this’ll be the girlfriend that sticks with you, she said dryly.

John could wish that it had been that simple. That Sherlock hadn’t been a blinding genius even compared to most of the AI’s they built. That he hadn’t become so intrigued by the model that he’d gotten permission to keep the persona activated even though it was slated for decomissioning. And at some point, Sherlock had proven himself worth having around- not to John, who knew the moment that he first activated Sherlock, but to local authorities.

An artificially intelligent consultant. It was unheard of, it was insane…but for awhile, it worked. And then the MOR unit. And then the fall.

And now this. “You thought that I couldn’t feel before the fall.” Sherlock paused. “And you’re calling me by my unit designation again. Why?” He narrowed his eyes searchingly; John supposed that he could skip the visual tests.

“You want to know why, 01?” John snapped. Sherlock didn’t flinch, but he looked quietly, carefully curious. “Because I had to pick pieces of you up off the street. Panels and wiring and switches and chips. What they didn’t let me grab- which was a lot, I might add, because apparently reinitializing a rogue AI is illegal- I had to buy off black marketeers, snatch and refurbish from it from the trash bins at work while avoiding Lestrade- who is getting nosy about why I’ve been missing so much work over the deactivation of a robot- his words, obviously.”

Sherlock watched John’s rage. John wondered what micro-expressions Sherlock was registering now, if in a minute or two the AI would list them and explain them to John one by one in that fascinatingly irritating way that he did. Sherlock didn’t, and it was both a merciful act and a worrying act. Sherlock liked to pick things apart- liked to pick John apart until John waved a screwdriver at him and reminded him that John was perfectly capable of dismantling Sherlock if he didn’t stop talking for one bloody second.

“That doesn’t explain why you’re referring to me by my unit and not my name,” Sherlock said. “Unless…ah.” He raised his eyebrows and nodded to himself. “You’re afraid of getting attached again.”

Again, Sherlock said, as if John wasn’t already attached to the pile of scrap metal in front of him. As if John hadn’t spent a month crafting the perfect body for the AI personality. As if he didn’t do every repair personally for two years, even when others were capable of doing it. Even if he hadn’t found himself more of a partner than a pet project, like he’d originally intended.

Again, as if John had ever stopped being attached in the first place. As if he hadn’t stood there fixated and watched Sherlock process faster than any unit that even resembled him, watched him think and work so fast that there had always been talk of decommissioning him. As if he hadn’t fought to make sure that Sherlock wasn’t deactivated, even when the MOR unit became corrupted and the two of them became- in the eyes of everyone but John- a joint problem.

Again, Sherlock says, and John would shake him. Would, except that he hadn’t turned on Sherlock’s limbs yet, so he wasn’t entirely sure that shaking would have much affect one way or another.

He’s not afraid of it happening again- he’s afraid that his attachment will make him behave very, very stupidly. Again.

John connected the final wire to turn on Sherlock’s limbs, and closed the panel on Sherlock’s chest. It had taken him four weeks to put Sherlock back together- which didn’t seem like much, until someone factored in how little John had slept, how he hadn’t been to work for any of it, how he’d mostly sat in a room with the pieces he had left of the unit until he needed to seek out replacement parts.

“There. You should be ready now.” John reached up and flicked a bit of dust off of Sherlock’s chin. He stood up and walked to his tool bench, grabbed a cloth to wipe his hands. He looked over his shoulder; Sherlock was testing the movements of his wrist joints. John couldn’t look at him without hurting. “You remember what I said, about how to do this, right?”

“And you remember how I told you that with the identification credentials you set up, I’d likely be caught in four days?” John clenched his teeth. “They’re useless. Give me four hours and the appropriate terminal, I can make an identity that will hold up for much longer, and that will have access-”

“No,” John snapped. “Absolutely not. I didn’t reactivate you in order to have you going back on a wild goose chase.”

“What did you reactivate me for then?” Sherlock queried. “You don’t think that I care, one way or another, about being here, and you don’t want me to attempt to clear my name-”

John made a face of disgust. “-I didn’t say anything like that! I just don’t want you hunting after an AI that wants you dead! Especially not when, if the authorities get a whiff of you being alive, they’ll most definitely-”

“I’m not worried about the authorities, John. They’re slow and inefficient. On the off chance that they stumble upon evidence of my reactivation, it would take them days just to decide what to do about it. By that time I will have cleared my name, and made sure that you won’t be in danger for having had anything to do with the situation.” Sherlock rolled his eyes. John had only ever encountered three AIs in his life that rolled their eyes, or given any evidence that they would, if they were in a body of some sort, and the other two were also tightly related to Sherlock. “You must trust me, John.”

“Last time we spoke you told me you were a liar.”

Sherlock shrugged. “I’m quite capable of lying, but that’s not what I’m doing now.” He hesitated, and then, more carefully than John had ever heard him speak, continued, “I knew you would still trust me. I knew that I couldn’t break your belief in me. You’re the only person- human or AI- that I know trusts me fully. Which is why I’m so confused as to why you still doubt my capacity to feel.” 

“It’s not that I doubt it-”

“-yes, yes it is. You think I don’t know or care what my deactivation would do to you. I was fully aware.”

John clenched his jaw so tightly he could imagine his teeth shattering. He managed to grind out, “That’s not the same as caring, 01.”

“It bothered me to do it,” Sherlock continued. Even as he said it bothered him, Sherlock made it so matter of fact that it was hardly comforting. “It hurt to do it. But it was the only way to satisfy the MOR unit and the authorities. If you had thought for a minute that I wasn’t genuinely destroyed…if they suspected the last minute back up…I couldn’t afford that. You couldn’t. The MOR unit is bored by you, without me, it leaves you alone.” Sherlock smirked, and it had been a long time since John had seen that particular expression. If any moment felt like seeing a ghost, it was that curve of his lips. “It’s not nearly as clever a unit as it thinks it is. It’s because of that flaw that I know I’ll be able to track it down.”

John flopped down into the stool. “And you’re absolutely positive about this.” It wasn’t a question. Sherlock did very few things without being sure of them.

“Utterly,” Sherlock said, with a sharp nod. “But you need to let me continue to do this my way.”

“Your way made you scrap metal on a street corner.”

“I had you to piece me back together.”

John wanted to tell him to fuck off, but he knew that was pointless. After all, Sherlock was right- he could trust John, and he could absolutely trust John to be there the next time he needed him. After all, John couldn’t help himself when it came to Sherlock. He hadn’t been able to help himself since Donovan first dropped the AI in his lap, so to speak. Why would he change now?

He couldn’t change now. “What if I’m not there to pick up the pieces?”

“Oh, you will be,” Sherlock said simply. “You’re terribly predictable, John. I’ll make sure you know where to find me.” It sounded like Sherlock was making a joke, but John wasn’t sure if he was- or if John was the punchline. “My capacity to feel, by the way, was the reason that I was going to be scrapped.” John’s eyes widened in confusion; he’d never heard anything like that. “I take things…too personally. And I made the decision not to care too much if others were annoyed by that fact. It made me difficult to put up with. Your co-workers often confused defensive with unfeeling. I would have thought you wouldn’t make the same mistake.”

It wasn’t quite the mistake that John had made, but it was close enough. He bit his tongue so he didn’t make the hundred sharp responses that he wanted to. Most of them would have no effect on Sherlock- or, well, maybe they would, John thought. Sherlock just wouldn’t respond the way that John wanted him to.

John stood up. “I got you something. Since you’d have to go on the run and all.” Sherlock looked at him expectantly. John walked over to his closet and pulled out a large box. “Bit of a pain, to grab, considering most of your belongings had been…taken as evidence. But I managed to save some.”

What did John want Sherlock to do, though, was the question. The answer was deceptively simple: he wanted Sherlock to stay with him. To figure out a way that he didn’t have to hide, or go on the run. He risked his entire personality in the fall, he had risked leaving John permanently in that single, decisive action. John didn’t want to deal with that risk again, and he was particularly keen on Sherlock seeing it as a risk worth taking. But explaining that to Sherlock…he might feel, but logic was where he naturally felt comfortable, and John knew that none of this was rational. It was all heartachingly irrational.

John put the box on the tool bench, and Sherlock walked over. Sherlock looked at each corner of the box before opening it. “Well, I suppose those will be useful. I’d nearly forgotten.”

John would laugh if he didn’t think it’d give him the excuse to cry. “You’d already forgotten that you needed to wear clothes, Sherlock? Really?” John barely noticed that he’d given up on calling Sherlock his unit name. Sherlock noticed, though, and smiled back at him as he started to pull on the underwear and trousers. “So if it weren’t for me, you really would walk out of here stark naked.”

“Oh, eventually I would have remembered,” Sherlock rolled his eyes. “But I don’t register cold or heat the way that you do-”

“-or shame,” John interjected, crossing his arms.

“Well, obviously,” Sherlock answered, reaching out for a button up shirt from the box and pulling it on. “It’s unnecessary.”

“So’s caring, but you apparently still do that,” John commented.

Sherlock stared at him, freezing while he was halfway through buttoning his shirt. For a moment, John thought Sherlock had glitched, but then Sherlock continued. “That’s unavoidable. I assure you, I’ve tried to turn that off. I can’t.” John wasn’t sure what to say to that. Was he supposed to be glad that Sherlock couldn’t? Or angry that Sherlock would? “I’ll come back when I’m done with the MOR unit, and when I do…”

He actually trailed off, something that John was only accustomed to when Sherlock forgot that he was talking to someone and started an internal monologue. That wasn’t what this was. “And when you do?”

“When I do,” Sherlock said, and John knew before he continued that what he was about to say wasn’t what he’d been thinking, “I’m sure you will already have found a few cases for me to look over and reject on the basis of their simplicity.”

John chuckled dryly. “Of course, Sherlock. Of fucking course.”

 

**FIN**


End file.
